Erik is a baseball fan who has been attending baseball games and snagging baseballs regularly since 2008.

7-5-11 PNC Park

Amy was working today, so I don’t have any good pictures.

Upon entering the stadium, I found ball #1 about four rows back in left field. It was good to get on the board early, because the last Pirates group did absolutely nothing. Zero home runs.

When the Astros came out, I glove tricked my second ball over by the bullpen.
Most of the Astros pitchers seemed really lazy when it came to shagging, so I was hopeful that I could glove trick a few balls today, but a coach named Suba marched all over the field collecting the balls, as if it was his sole and only purpose with the team.

The first Astros group was weak, but the next group featured Hunter Pence and Carlos Lee along with Jason Michaels, probably the Astros three best BP hitters in that order.

After a couple rounds of going opposite field, Hunter Pence started letting loose and hitting some home runs.

In the span of a minute, I caught three balls cleanly, all on the fly, here:
Ball #3 was hit by Pence. It was basically right at me. I stood up on the bleacher as I made the catch, just out of habit. Moments later he hit another home run that was slightly to my left. I tracked the ball and caught it reaching forward and made the basket catch as several fans turned away, blinded by the sun.

Jason Michaels hopped in the cage and promptly hit a home run which I caught on the fly. Since there was so much action in such a short amount of time, people started noticing me and asking me questions such as how many that was for me, etc. No one gave me a hard time though.

During the Astros last group, I caught a ground rule double here:
It was a milestone ball, as it was the 1,400th ball that I’ve snagged.

Moments later I snagged another ground rule double, and then finished things off with a clean catch of yet another home run.

I gave away one of my extra decoy balls to a young boy whose father was asking me for ballhawking tips for his son.

I watched the game from the Club Seats.
I picked a great spot for a foul ball. The only thing in front of me was a camera well,
and a wide open row to my right.
But as luck would have it not a single ball would be hit within three sections either way of me.

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1 Comment

LOL’ed at your comment about Suba … see him every spring with the ‘Stros … been with the team longer than any manager or coach (easily back to the 90s). Picking up bp balls and never handing any out seems to be his job description indeed.

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